Sunday, May 10, 2015

Vatican Conference Criticized for Backing
Abortion and Population Control Politics

Wendy Wright

Comment by Julio Severo:According to the Brazilian
press, Leonardo Boff, the main Liberation Theology advocate in
Brazil, has been one of pope’s advisors for global warming issues, including
his upcoming encyclical on the environment.

NEW
YORK, May (C-Fam) A Vatican conference to promote Pope Francis’ upcoming
encyclical on the environment spotlighted abortion and population control
proponents. At the same time critics warn that climate change alarmism
ultimately harms the poor.

“The
world’s poor desperately need abundant, affordable, reliable energy, and Sachs
and Ban would deprive them of it,” said Calvin Beisner, referring to UN
Secretary General Ban Ki-moon and Jeffrey Sachs, director of the Earth
Institute at Columbia University, both of whom met with the Pope and his
advisers this past week.

The
presence of both men as guests of the Pope raised eyebrows. Ban Ki-moon has
been a proponent of abortion at the UN, going so far as promoting it in
conflict areas where abortion is illegal. Sachs is a proponent of population
control and fought to get “reproductive health” — used to promote abortion —
included in the Millennium Development Goals.

“Policies
to fight alarmist global warming will condemn the world’s poor to more
generations of misery and early death,” said Beisner.

Beisner
was in Rome to provide an alternative view to those invited to the Vatican
conference. The author of “Prospects for Growth: A Biblical View of Population,
Resources, and the Future” delivered an Open
Letter signed by nearly 150 scientists, religious and policy leaders.

Fossil
fuels “generate energy to lift billions of God’s precious children out of
poverty” and “liberate[s] from the tomb of the earth the carbon dioxide on
which plants and therefore all the rest of life depend,” the letter states.
“This beautifully reveals the Creator’s wisdom and care for all of His
creation—people, animals, plants, and the earth itself.”

Scientists
and religious leaders at the Vatican conference agreed to a Declaration that
took an alarmist tone. One attendee writing in Slate
called the event a “Sermon on the Mount moment.”

“Human-induced
climate change is a scientific reality, and its decisive mitigation is a moral
and religious imperative for humanity,” it states.

Ban
Ki-moon plugged the Pope’s encyclical to be released in June. “It will convey
to the world that protecting our environment is an urgent moral imperative and
a sacred duty for all people of faith and people of conscience,” he said.

He
urged religious leaders to do more to secure success for a highly anticipated
UN conference on climate change this December – a process that has failed to
reach agreement thus far.

“It is
critically important that people and their leaders hear your strong moral voice
in the coming months,” he said.

The
Vatican declaration warns the UN conference “may be the last effective
opportunity to negotiate arrangements that keep human-induced warming below 2
degrees C” and calls for a “rapid world transformation to a world powered by
renewable and other low-carbon energy.”

At a
press conference Ban Ki-moon called on countries to raise $100 billion per year
to help developing countries transition to a green economy.

“We
have only a handful of years before the window of opportunity closes forever,”
he said.

Tom
Harris of the International Climate Science Coalition said, “Pope Francis must
have the courage to ignore the politically correct but irresponsible advice of
his advisors and simply tell the truth.”

“Climate
will continue to change no matter what we do. So let’s help the world’s poor to
the degree we can afford by providing them with reliable, inexpensive
electricity and stop pretending we have a crystal ball to future climate
states.”